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jonbot jonbot is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Burlingame, CA
Posts: 538
Exclamation Photo of bad turn signal/high low beam stalk

The high/low beam switch in my car hasn't worked since the day I purchased it. Whenever I'd turn on the headlights it would be in "high-beams mode", and moving the stick fore and aft did nothing. Instead of fixing the problem, one of the previous owners dealt with this by aiming the High-beams down lower, so other drivers wouldn't be blinded.

After some troubleshooting, I suspected the problem was in the turning stalk, and after swapping it for a properly functioning one, it works fine. After the repair, I took a picture detailing why the old turn signal stalk failed. I figured I'd add it to the forums, in case anyone in the future does a search.



You can see the plastic that holds the contacts apart has melted, thereby allowing the high-beams contacts to connect. This is most likely the result of years of the contacts getting dirtier and dirtier, raising the resistance higher and higher, and making the contacts hotter and hotter, to the point it melted the plastic.

The preventative fix for this is the relay kit sold by our host. I obtained one a couple of weeks ago, and it's going in tomorrow, it will make sure this doesn't happen again. This will be especially crucial after I install my new H4 headlights because they draw more current than the original sealed beam setup.



Jon
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Old 12-22-2007, 09:58 PM
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